Drusus, Marcus Livius ( born c. 124 BC—died 91 BC ) son of the tribune of 122 BCby the same name; as tribune in 91, Drusus made the last nonviolent civilian attempt to reform the government of republican Rome. Drusus began by proposing colonial and agrarian reform bills. He then introduced a judiciary law that probably specified that the law courts, then controlled by the equites, or cavalry, should be impaneled jointly from senators and equites and that all jurors should be liable to prosecution for corruption.By this compromise Drusus sought to reconcile the equestrian and senatorial orders, which had come into conflict after the trial by equites of an honest governor who had refused to allow extortion of his province by publicans (contractors or tax collectors). Neither order was satisfied with Drusus’ proposal, however, and opposition from all sides increased when he pushed for the enfranchisement of the attempted to resolve the tensions between the senatorial order (the political class) and the equestrian order, or knights (the commercial class).

As tribune in 123–122, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus had given the right of collecting taxes to the knights and had made them the source of jurors on standing criminal courts. In 92 an honest senator, Publius Rutilius Rufus, was convicted of corruption in governing his province when in fact he had tried to control equestrian rapacity in tax collecting. Drusus came forward, as “patron of the Senate,” with a solution. Three hundred knights were to be raised to the Senate, and in the future jurors for standing criminal courts would be selected from this enlarged Senate. By this scheme, the wealthiest of the knights would become senators and the rest would lose control of the courts. Although supported by the distinguished senator Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, Drusus’s proposal did not satisfy extremists of either order, nor did it please those who stood to gain by the conflict between them, such as the general Gaius Marius.

Opposition from all sides increased when Drusus pushed for the enfranchisement of Rome’s Italian allies. The Senate declared his legislation invalid on technical grounds. Disturbances involving Drusus’ Drusus’s supporters among the allies increased, and the reformer was murdered. His assassin was never discovered. The immediate consequence of his murder was the Social War (91–87), the revolt of the Italian allies.